People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1895 — PROSPERITY GUARANTEED TO NATIONAL BANKS. [ARTICLE]

PROSPERITY GUARANTEED TO NATIONAL BANKS.

Thrmigh the Foistering, Paternal Care of L ncle Sam. Tallemachus Tells How the People Catch it Where the Hen Caught the Ax in Their in Their Race With the Banker for Dollars. “THE LIFE OF TRADE” VS. “THE DEATH OF TRADESMEN.”

Statistics say that over ninety per cent of all who go into business fail and lose what they invest. - This includes banking ias well as all other lines. But 'bank failures. Which certainly Ido not exceed one per cent of I the whole number, possibly not i that, are so out of proportion to the rest that one is led to inquire as to the cause. First, we tind the necessary capjtal used by the investors in manufacturing or mercantile pursuits cost the investor an A nnual interest of at least six per cent,, which must always be provided for, even when the business is losing money. Again, all additional money necessary to carry on business after the first investment will cost 8 percent, compounded at least four times a year. Then we have competition called “The Life of Trade," but better named the death of tradesmen—the kind of competition which brings secret joy to the business man’s heart when he sees his competitor forced to do business at a loss or close his doors; the kind of competition that brings with ! it the exultation that one might

ence of a step daddy to all other interests, it would indeed be remarkable if the banks did not succeed and nearly all other enterprises catch it where the hen caught the ax. k Tallemachus.

feel when he buoys himself up and keeps his own head, above water until he reaches the shore by throwing his weight, upon his weaker and drowning brothers and then leaving them to perish, justifying himself by the lavM of self-preservation. sidfes all this, there are business depressions,- bad crops,, bad: debts, labor troubles and falling prices which are liable to break upon us without a note of warning and 'strew the business ocean with innnumerable wrecks, not of weak'and unsubstantial but of those that under ordinary conditions would be, perfectly solvent, owning often-, times three or four time's more property than their total indebtedness. But money,',. the lifeblood of civilization,. could hot be had and they perished'.7 <

Will the time ever.come whenwe,, as a people,, will . organize a signal service and equip life-say . ing stations to protect ourselves from commercial disasters "on the sea of trade? And is it wonder, viewed in the light of these facts, that such a vast majority of those engaging in business fail, and from, their vanishing fortunes is heaped together that which goes to build up hiillionaires? But what of the banks, and why do they so nearly escape any share of the almost universal disaster? It may be answered that, unlike all other business, they receive interest on their capital invested. This is paid them by the government four times a year—often in advance. Additional money required by them to conduct their business is secured by them at one per cent. This the government also furnishes. They pay no insurance 'on their capital—the government looks after that.

If their bonds are destroyed, the government restores them free of cost. If the money they borrow of Uncle Sam at one per cent is burned up, he gives them more to make it good. He makes a market for their money, as he did in 1875, by calling in and destroying one hundred million of his own notes to make room for theirs. This he did by issuing one hundred millions of interest bearing bonds in their stead. When silver dollars, behind which there are no inter-est-bearing bonds for the people to carry, begins to come upon the market and compete with the bank money, Uncle Sam kicks silver out of the back door. He also agrees to borrow, pay interest upon and keep constant15’ locked up out of the channels of trade one hundred millions of gold which might otherwise come into competition with the "bankers' money. Having thus surrounded them with his arms and seeming to understand the danger, he charges them by law not to invest a dollar in any enterprise that gives employment to labor or handles its products, but to loan their at interest on good security where profits are assured, let conditions be what they may. With all this fostering care toward his favorite nephew, the national bank, and with all the indiffer-